The Orthodox Christian Network Blog

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In Romans 5:13, the Holy Apostle Paul abruptly stops discussing the entrance of sin and death into the world; in fact, he stops in the middle of a sentence and leaves the thought uncompleted. He then discusses how sin was judged before God gave the Law before returning to his original subject. Fr. Lawrence Farley explains that St. Paul briefly changed subjects because “his mind overflows with new insights.”

St. Paul’s mind overflowed with insights, and he couldn’t wait to give these insights to the early Church, because he was excited about his relationship with God, and wanted to bring others into this exciting relationship.

In the article, “Do I Share My Faith ,” you can see the importance of telling others about your relationship with God and His Church, and giving others the opportunity to enter into this relationship. At first it might seem like it would be awkward to talk with others about your faith, but stop to think about the things about which you like to talk: you talk about the things that interest and excite you, the things that are truly meaningful to you. There is nothing more exciting than your relationship with God; if you believe this, you should want to talk to others about Him! You should feel like Ss. Peter and John, “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

If you are excited about your relationship with God, you will want to speak with Him in prayer. Could you imagine caring deeply about your friends and family, but never bothering to speak with them? It should be even more inconceivable that you could go even a single day without speaking with God. The importance of personal prayer cannot be overemphasized. Lorenzo Scupoli teaches that prayer “is the means for attracting and the hand for receiving all the blessings, so richly poured on us from the inexhaustible source of God’s infinite love and goodness toward us.” Archimandrite Sophrony believes prayer should become “the normal state for the soul, and [then] the grace of the Holy Spirit may visit her, suddenly, inscrutably, bringing a foretaste of eternity.” When you keep this in mind - when you think about how exciting it is to be able to speak with God and receive His goodness - you will want to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), praying day and night to God (Psalm 88:1-2).

If you are excited about God, you will also want to worship as much as possible with your parish in the Divine Liturgy. Khouria Frederica Mathewes-Green describes how exciting the Divine Liturgy can be:

Heaven will strike earth like lightning on this spot. The worshippers in this little building will be swept into a divine worship that proceeds eternally, grand with seraphim and incense and God enthroned, ‘high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple’ (Isaiah 6:1). The foundations of that temple shake with the voice of angels calling ‘Holy’ to each other, and we will be there, lifting fallible voices in the refrain, an outpost of eternity. If this is true, it is the most astonishing thing that will happen in our city today. I believe it is true.

You can maintain your excitement about God by reminding yourself of this point from St. John of Kronstadt, “Your Lord is a fire: do not let your heart be cold, but burn with faith and love.”